Twas a long, exhausting (but ridiculously awesome) weekend and then yesterday was the sis-in-law's birthday stuff so I'm not operating on a whole lot of sleep. I got up this morning and got Miss N off to school and then got sucked into an episode of a Barbara Walters' show on Investigation Discovery that chronicled two babies switched at birth in the late 70's. And boy is reality truly stranger than fiction sometimes. The Coker (yes, that's their real name) family had been trying unsuccessfully for years to have a baby via IVF and finally delivered a girl named Kimberly in 1978. A few days later, the Twigg family, who had three children at home and had previously lost a newborn due to a heart issue, checked into the same hospital to have their daughter, Arlena (the names in this story, yo). Baby Kimberly's heart rate had been falling just prior to her delivery and she looked a little worse for wear after she made entry into the world, but she seemed to rebound the next day and be happy and healthy. Arlena, however, had been born with intestinal issues and a heart problem that doctors warned would likely take her life. The Twiggs were confused by this diagnosis as upon delivery their daughter appeared to be just fine, but they accepted the news and prepared for the likely loss of another child. For the next six years, both families raised their daughters, both unaware that any kind of switch had taken place. Kimberly's mother passed away from cancer when she was six, leaving her with her father and later a step-mother whom she would come to call, 'Mom'. Arlena's heart issue grew worse and she prepped for surgery with her doting mother by her side, but doctors noticed something odd on her blood work. Her blood type differed from her parents, meaning she could not biologically be their child. Her parents put this out of their minds as they turned their attention towards getting her healthy, but Arlena passed away the day after her heart surgery. Shortly thereafter, her parents petitioned the hospital to find out what had happened to their biological daughter. And that set off a hot mess of events.
The Twiggs went public with their search and quickly discovered Kimberly was likely their biological child, though her father (now married to wife number three after a nasty divorce from wife number two, in which he refused to let her see his daughter ever again) didn't believe this to be true. After a few years and assurances the Twiggs would not sue for full custody of Kimberly, he finally agreed to a DNA test and the results were as the Twiggs expected. Mr. Coker broke the news to his daughter and left it up to her as to whether she wanted to pursue a relationship with her biological family and this is where memories begin to differ. Kimberly, 14 at the time of her initial interview with the Barbs, says she was cordial towards her birth mother and siblings and when mom asked for a hug instead of a handshake, she complied. But later on, the woman began to badmouth Coker and at one point asked if she could call Kimberly, 'Arlena', which the girl said she wasn't comfortable with. Because of this, Kimberly decided not to see her birth family anymore and her father respected her wishes. But the birth mother recollects things differently, saying Kimberly ran up and hugged her when they first met and asked to call her, 'Mom'. She also denies poisoning the well when it came to the Cokers, but was quick to point out that she believed they had essentially kidnapped her healthy child and given them their terminally ill daughter. Methinks the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle, but whatever that may be, both families sued the hospital and settled years later. But The Twiggs weren't satisfied with just the settlement and wanted to probe deeper into the hows and whys of the children getting switched. The Twigg mother is utterly convinced that The Coker clan, who were apparently moneyed at the time, knew of their daughter's illness and weren't willing to deal with it and/or try again with IVF so they paid off the doctor to switch their sick baby with a healthy one. There is some evidence that something shady went down; the doctor listed for both girls changed shortly before they were discharged, the weight of one of the babies was clearly tampered with and the wrist and ankle bands that bind baby to mother had been switched, which had to have been done deliberately. The Twigg mother also noticed something seemed off about the baby she'd first held in her arms after delivery and the one brought to her a day later, but when she made mention of this the nurse gave her attitude and claimed that if the ankle and wrist bands said, "Twigg", then it must be her baby (personally, I would have raised hell if something didn't feel right. It's your child, FFS). There's a lot of circumstantial evidence but nothing concrete to definitively say anyone paid for anything. The particulars of what went down remain a mystery even now, they were overshadowed by what happened after Kimberly decided not to see The Twigg family anymore (or after her father forced her not to see them, as the birth mother claims).
The Twiggs sued for full custody of Kimberly, who in turn took them to court to try and sever their parental rights so she could stay with the man she considered her father. The Twigg's lawyer repeatedly referred to Kimberly as, 'Arlena' in court and painted her father as an abusive prick. In the end, court shrinks essentially decided the case when their submitted reports stated that the Twigg mother was paranoid as hell and not a good influence on Kimberly. The Twigg's parental rights were severed, though six months later Kimberly would move in with them anyway after she began having issues with her step-mother. The arrangement lasted until she was just about 18 and then she left the Twigg home because her siblings resented her for the whole mess, as well as how the birth mother fawned all over her. That was where the original 20/20 episode left off, the ID show was updating things some twenty-two years later. And nothing worked out well for anyone, really. The Twiggs divorced and the mother remarried and still firmly believes The Cokers bought her child and everything she did to get the kid back was justified. Mr. Coker passed away in 2012, having been estranged from his only child for four years. And Kimberly now had six children by four different men, two of them ex-husbands, and has been homeless and so down and out in years past that she worked as a stripper. Things have stabilized for her now, she has custody of three of the kids and works a 9 to 5, but she's not seen her firstborn son in over 15 years and they didn't even go into what happened to the other two kids. She regrets being estranged from her father over something as simple as money (apparently he loaned her some money and his wife stayed on top of the loan to the point of annoyance), and no longer keeps in touch with either family. She has no ill will towards The Twiggs, but she also has no desire to ever see them again. All things considered, life is good for her now. But it was sad when the show flashed back twenty years to when Babs asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and a then 14-year-old Kimberly said she wanted to be a lawyer and be married with a couple of kids. Barbara told her she was just a few years away from being able to make her own decisions and I thought, "Yeeeeeah, and that's not gonna go well." (And hey, I can relate, didn't go well for me either for years after I was legal).
This story was a fucking mess. I mean, if ever there were a story with a million unhappy endings, this was it. Both families were destroyed back in the 70's and remain fractured now. The Twigg mother lost her child, turned right around and launched into a custody battle while she was still highly emotional. It sounds as if getting Kimberly back became the only focus in her life, and she borderline neglected her other children in order to accomplish it. It's also creepy as hell how she wanted to call Kimberly by her dead daughter's name. It's like she forgot she'd raised another daughter for nearly a decade and just because she found out she wasn't biologically hers, it didn't mean the girl never walked the earth and wasn't important. I wonder how much of her resolved to win had to do with not speaking the hell up at the hospital in the first place. Guilt is a hell of a motivator. I totally believed she was paranoid and overly emotional during the whole thing, as the shrinks said. On the other hand, Mr. Coker came off as somewhat shady himself. Your daughter lost her mother at a very young age, got lucky in finding someone who loved and cared about her enough to be a second mother to her and just because shit goes down between you and this woman, you forbid her from continuing a relationship with your child. A child you know has lost the most important person in her life, twice over as it turned out. And then you let your third (or fourth) wife dictate the relationship you have with your daughter when she's an adult? What the fuck is wrong with you? I never understand these people who let step-parents take the wheel when it comes to their kids, and who let those people treat their kids badly or tell them what they can and can't do for them. I don't know if he was a part of this alleged conspiracy to buy a healthy kid or not, but he was definitely hiding something. I felt bad for Arlena and for Kimberly, and even for the other Twigg children, but not any of the so-called adults involved. I don't think any of them acted in the best interest of their children. Nothing is more sacred than that, if you feel something is amiss at the hospital then you need to raise holy hell until someone listens to you about it. The Twigg mother initially said she wanted to find her child because she'd grown up in an abusive situation and wanted to maker sure her daughter was not being treated badly. But that wasn't enough for her, she had to try and force this kid to love her by any means necessary. I can't imagine being in that situation, but your job as a parent is to think about what's best for the child, not what you want to have happen. When she found out that kid was a-ok, she should've left the door wide open for a relationship if and when Kimberly chose to have one with her, not kicked down the door emotionally beat the girl into submission, especially when doing so was harming her other children. What a waste, in so many ways. I'm glad Kimberly has found some peace though, girl deserves it.
